Following their winning Christmas special — complete with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reunion — Amandaland arrives for a second series with an old-school sitcom goodwill behind it. When it was first announced as a spin-off from the much-loved Motherland, it seemed like a stretch to centralise Lucy Punch’s Amanda, the rich Alpha mum bombshell.
However, in following the character post-divorce, still acting like the Queen Bee but in reality now living in South Harlesden — SoHa she calls it — and working in a kitchen shop to make ends meet, it has found a rich seam of comedy in her delusional inability to deal with reality.
As salve to her ego, she has rebranded herself as an influencer, and as we begin the new season she is in a content creation frenzy.
Her delusional higher social status is the source of much of the fun, as in one inspired sequence when she pitches Dragons’ Den-style to a business loans manager in HSBC for money to secure her the house an influencer like her “needs”, only to come away with a personal loan. “I accept your offer… congratulations,” she tells the bemused manager before bragging to other parents that she has made a partnership deal with a Hong Kong/Shanghai organisation.
Among these other parents, Philippa Dunne as Anne continues her sterling work, especially when the usually meek yes-woman to Amanda accidentally becomes an actual influencer after her pot plants go viral.
But it’s hard to beat Lumley as Amanda’s mum Felicity, a perpetual nuisance who’ll get a cab onto the kids’ football pitch mid-match and who brushes off Amanda’s worries about being shallow by reassuring her that she comes from “a long line of women of integrity and care”, while busy writing her grandson a belated birthday cheque.
This is a show that manages hypocrisy and delusions with a sweet touch that makes it a warm, impeccably turned-out joy.
